Friday, December 4, 2015

Kiwanis, fried pickles and a Christmas Tree

Love synchronicity! After moving further east in Queens, with Christmas on the horizon, it was high time to retrieve my Christmas tree from my Jewish former neighbors' attic. My friend Dorothy offered to help and before she drove me and my tree to the new neighborhood we stopped at the Dog and Duck pub for a beer and Friday night supper. There were Sunnyside Kiwanis president Will Sadd and secretary Carol Masiello! Their fundraising  mixer was tonight though their email announcing it was not yet read (by me anyway). So dinner became a bit more expensive but it was fun AND I got to try the fried pickles special for half price. NYS Assemblymember Cathy Nolan stopped by and other nice folks too. The free mulled wine was sampled on the way out the door. It was a very festive evening! Tree and I are now safely in my "new" home and Little Christmas Eve is tomorrow! The holiday season has begun with tree, pickles, Kiwanis and friends!! Life is good!

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Molasses Cookies

Another childhood recipe, this one is off the Brer Rabbit Molasses bottle, one my awesome mom made every so often. We would make these cookies small because then we could eat more of them. One time Mom and I were having one of our famous mother-daughter talks while drinking tea and eating cookies and looked down to find that we had eaten a couple of dozen!!! Call them molasses cookies or ginger cookies, just make these.

Mix together these ingredients:
3/4 Cup shortening (melted, cooled a bit) /
OR butter, softened
1 Cup sugar
1/4 Cup molasses
1 egg

Sift or whisk together in separate bowl:
2 t baking soda
2 Cups flour
1/2 t ground cloves
1/2 t ground ginger (or 1 t)
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt

  • Add dry ingredients to wet mixture, a bit at a time.
  • Chill for an hour or so (metal bowl helps).
  • Roll into small balls and roll balls in sugar.
  • Bake on greased cookie sheet at 375 degrees 8 to 10 minutes.
  • Leave on sheet a minute or so then remove to wire rack to cool.

Made with shortening, the cookies may harden to ginger snaps after a few days but the butter version stays pretty moist unless you bake them longer. Storing in cookie tins works well.

I made these to give to folks stopping at our Kiwanis table at the Richmond Hill Park Fair.




Monday, September 7, 2015

Who is Bernie Sanders? Watch:



This 9:07 minute mini-documentary on Senator Bernie Sanders from YouTube's The Daily Conversation deserves to be given more play and will answer some of the questions of my friends who wonder about his background and why I support him for President of the United States of America in 2016. #FeelTheBern

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Wondering

Checking out the Le Pan mini tablet.  Maybe I can type fairly normally, albeit on a tiny keyboard. It is bigger than my phone! Adventure!

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Killing People is Wrong

The Boston Bomber will be murdered by the state of Massachusetts. The awesome Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Connie Schultz immediately posted on the issue on Facebook and her many friends and follows responded. My comment was:

Sr. Helen Prejean ("Dead Man Walking" nun) feels Dzhokhar is remorseful. She's met with him 5 times. Further, if it is wrong to kill someone, it is wrong for the state to kill someone. PERIOD. We must practice what we preach. The death penalty must go.

The violence must stop. -- And you ought to be following Connie Schultz on Facebook (and elsewhere, like Twitter). She posts about all sorts of issues as well as photos of her husband Senator Sherrod Brown and their dog Franklin.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Sanders announces, People respond

Great to see Senator Bernie Sanders enter the race of President. Announcing last week, Bernie received $1.5 million from 35,000 donors in the first 24 hours and people ARE responding. He appeared on Maddow Monday evening: